Abstract
Laboratory experiments are conducted to evaluate the effect of some non-traditional additives on the engineering properties of clayey soil, which show problematic phenomenon when used as a construction material. The conducted tests covered the influence of these additives on various parameters like consistency limits, compaction characteristics and CBR value. Two nontraditional stabilizers are selected in this study, polymers and phosphoric acid at three different percent which are (1%, 3% and 5%) of the dry soil weight. It is concluded that addition of the polymer to the clayey soil results in a slight increase in plastic limit while the liquid limit is not affected accompanied by a marginal decrease in the dry unit weight while the optimum moisture content remains unaffected. The addition of phosphoric acid to the clayey soil has no effect on its Atterberg limits. In general, it is observed that polymer is found to be ineffective as a stabilizer to improve clayey soils, especially in small amounts of about (3%). The phosphoric acid treated soil gained better improvement for all amounts of additive used. For (3%) acid treated soil the CBR is about (360%) compared to that of untreated soil, for that, it can be concluded that the improvement using phosphoric acid in the clay soils is a promising option and can be applied to solve the geotechnical stabilization problems.
Highlights
Improvement of soil properties or soil stabilization is a technique introduced for the purpose of improving poor soil properties to make it acceptable for construction in the engineering projects
The effect of polymer addition on Atterberg limits is shown in Figure (2), it can be seen that there is a small decrease in plasticity index due to a slight increase in
The effect of adding phosphoric acid on Atterberg limits is shown in Figure (5), it is observed that there is no noticeable effect on the liquid limit, there is a slight decrease in the plasticity index due to a slight increase in plastic limit
Summary
Improvement of soil properties or soil stabilization is a technique introduced for the purpose of improving poor soil properties to make it acceptable for construction in the engineering projects. The effect of additives on the engineering properties of soil has been studied by many researchers. A synthesis of potential stabilizers that is identified by the US Army Corps of Engineers and contract researchers for the period between (1946 -1977) was presented by Oldham et al [1] The results of their investigation identified cement, lime, resins, asphalt, silicates, salts, and other products as potential stabilizers demonstrating varying degrees of engineering success. The intended task of this paper is studying the effect of two non-traditional additives on the engineering properties of clayey soil, especially, those soils that show a trend to be more problematic during geotechnical construction. As the California Bearing Ratio test (CBR) is widely used by the engineers to determine the suitability of a soil as a subgrade or subbase for highway and runway design and construction, it was considered in this study to evaluate the strength improvement of the soil
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